Picking a word for the year isn’t always the easiest task. Sometimes a bunch of words stick out to us. Two years ago Ann Voskamp touched me greatly with the word “eucharisteo” and that was my word for the year-without me even realizing it. I even bought the bracelet to wear to remind myself to give thanks and to live in thanks everyday.

Last year I had started so many things and never really finished anything properly. I was realizing that multitasking doesn’t always work and that I needed to finish things before jumping into a new one. I was creating chaos with unfinished projects and creating to-do lists a mile long that never got checked off. So, my 2015 word was “finish” as I just wanted to remind myself to commit and finish and to not over-commit to things because I want each project to get the best of me, rather than tiny pieces. My family deserves that, my pets deserve that, my home deserves that, I deserve that and most of all God deserves to be glorified by my actions -including my to-do lists!

For 2016 I have been looking around here and there trying to find the right word for me. I have seen so many awesome ones over the past year and I am always inspired by them. So, a few months back when I started to see the word “FOCUS” and remember that I had seen it I began to wonder if this was going to be my new word.

I have prayed over a new word and asked for God’s guidance and this word keeps finding me and sticking out like a sore thumb. I didn’t even realize that I was unfocused until recently when I was popping out of the #FMFParty chat and being sidetracked by everything from repotting plants, making snacks, and spending time with children. Over the past few days I have found this word in so many images and places and I have barely even been using any electronics because of the holidays. I am certain that this year God is telling me I need to “focus”.

I haven’t picked a verse for this coming year yet. As some of you may know via Twitter, I began reading through the Bible chronologically about a month ago. I figure if I can stay relatively on track during the busiest time of the year than I have no excuse to quit during 2016. A TON of verses have been highlighted in my Bible already and I have also made several graphics that I have shared on Instagram and Facebook.

I am still praying about which verse I should really “focus” on for 2016 and have even wondered if my verse would stay the same!

This is my verse for the year so what better way to start off day 6 of #write31days than with the #FMFParty Prompt “possible”!?!

It is so true though, I am learning through this year that this verse really was what I needed to hear and hear again as time has gone on.

It isn’t easy being a parent. It is really, really hard to co-parent with your own parents when you have different beliefs and different expectations. I am finding this is becoming a meditation of sorts because when everything around me makes me feel upset and defeated (I am HIGHLY emotional) reminding myself that all things are possible with God seems to ground me and remind me of His faithfulness to me even when I am not faithful to Him.

It amazes me that choosing such a simple verse for myself for the year can have such an impact on the day to day. In a lot of ways it has helped me to stay on track with reading and reviews, blogging, and picking myself up when I really, REALLY don’t want to.

I have learned this year that parenting with my parents is possible.

That loving my children while disliking their behaviour is not only possible, but necessary.

I have learned that saying I love you, even though it is rarely said back, is in fact heard.

With the diagnosis of arthritis and degenerative disc disease I have realized that pain free days are possible and even predictable to an extent. I have learned that journaling really helps me to feel sane. I have learned that God has a purpose for me and that is why He has kept me alive. I have learned that keeping pets are really hard on my body and that in order to keep things under control I have to be more strict (no more sleeping in my bed).

I have learned that you CAN teach an old bird to talk and best of all, laugh!

I have learned to mourn. I have had so many losses in my life but never actually grieved. I have become more capable of mourning a loss in a healthy way, which I never ever thought would be possible for me. EVER.

I know this post doesn’t seem like much, maybe it’s not the best to read, but it is fun for me to reflect on how this one verse has played a big part in my life. I have been in the Word more this year than ever before.

Because of my back issues, pain medications and struggling with all of that I have found it possible to be closer to God on a daily basis. So the most I have learned is that He will use every opportunity, if we allow, to bring Him glory!

The walls around the village limits rose high on the horizon, yet when the darkness fell and the sky was lit by the moon and the stars I fell under siege, an army throwing flaming balls with their trebuchet over the walls and burning down my domain. The fire scorching everything it touched, bursting life as I knew into flames.

God hollering down at me, “child, this is another of Satan’s games!!”

My pulse grew quickly as I clambered to escape, even if that meant giving up, giving in, to end the pain and let Satan win. Yeah, the nausea, flashbacks, and nightmares –all feel like an inescapable plague.

Maybe I don’t know what to do, maybe I know exactly what to do. I honestly have no clue which is right or wrong. I can only pray that I am following the one who won’t lead me wrong. Maybe anxiety is part of an attack, or maybe it is God’s way of showing me where I shouldn’t go. How do you figure out the truth? How do you really truly know?

Sometimes, I feel frozen in time, and then I am reminded that staying the same is often the key to change and that maybe, just maybe, I am exactly where I need to be in order to do what God created me for.

If my story can bring Him glory, then my life has been a success. I can live with that. If I can turn one person to the One who is most high I will deem this life a success.

If I keep prayer on my tongue and His Word on my lips than I can force Satan to shut up, like Jesus did while He was being tempted those 40 days.

Yeah. I know, I am not Jesus. I am NOT God. BUT I am created in His likeness, and that has to account for something, right?

We had some pretty intense smoke in the air last week. Leaving some pretty awesome sunsets and making it hard to breathe. My head was clogged and all I could think about was how the people who were close to the fires must’ve felt, how could they breathe? It reminded me how small our world really is, a fire some 10-12 hours away could make me sick, that puts things into perspective, those people truly are my neighbours.

If the smoke can cover a few provinces and choke out my breath then surely the spirit of God can encompass the globe and choke out Satan’s flames, breathing the breath of life into every. single. persons soul. The breath of the healer, the redeemer. The Alpha and Omega. The one who knows it all and always has. Who knew that smoke would lead to this blog post before the human race had ever heard about a blog, or even the written word. He knew. He was there and always has been.

The cold outside seems to be moving into the house and is causing my bones to ache and my body to shiver. The indoor thermometer reads all of 58 and I wonder what the outside one must say. I think much of North America is dealing with temperature extremes right now and it is soooo easy to complain and can be so hard to give God the glory and praise wheneverything seems to icy-bleak, a stark contrast to Gods loving warmth.

I am thankful though. Thankful that I have the ability to feel the cold because the nerves in my body are working right, thankful to look outside and see the sea of snow covering fields and trees and marshes alike, blanketing them in a glow from within that can only come from God.

Thankful that under all these feet of snow there are plants and grasses waiting for the melt so they can spring to life, reach up high stretching towards the heavens thanking Him for the nutrients, the water, the soil.

You see, everything gives God glory and praise; and everyone should give it just as freely as the earth.

A Psalm of Praise

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.~Psalm 100~

The good always flows, it always comes into our lives as surely as the moon moves the oceans waters. It saddens me when people I love don’t see the good in their life, the God in their life, the good news that can only be described as a miracle, a God-given grace, a second chance. I feel like grabbing them, shaking them and begging them to take off the blinders so they can see because counting your blessings and those small things makes the big picture seem glaringly bright, like an ad in Times Square glowing huge in the night.

GIVE THANKS IN ALL THINGS

A one liner that would turn heads, make people think and think again. Maybe for a second the rat-race would slow and they would look at their lives before picking up the pace again. Planting a seed that would grow to give praise.

I am praying and praying hard that the hearts of those who are scared of God, don’t know God or are blind to God will open up and find Him in all his glory. That they will hold him high and be happy in His loving embrace and the song on my lips sings “Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of power and might…” and my soul sings AMEN.

I need to finish things I start, trust that everything is possible with god Mark 10:27 and live an “Amen” life.

Do you ever feel burned out, burned down and like whatever you have written probably should be burnt?

I do.

Some days staring at the cursor on the screen or the blank page in my journal can cause some sort of physical pain that I can’t quite pinpoint. I love to write. I love to get my thoughts out as they are happening, so when this happens I tend to be tense, bottled up for one reason or another. Usually, it is something I am not aware of, at least at the time.

Lately I have been feeling just like that, while my thoughts are boiling over in a desperate eagerness to escape.

Yeah, they are right there at the surface yet there are no words, or so it seems.

I never did understand HOW I can have so much on my mind but no words to express it! Are my thoughts not filled with words on their own? Why do I feel those words are not good enough to make it to the page without some sort of profound way of gathering them together?

The first poem I ever wrote was titled “Seven”. While I don’t recall it or have a copy of it anymore it was my catalyst for my writing and my love of books. I don’t consider myself a writer but I guess anyone who writes, even if it’s for themselves is a writer, a wordsmith.

I have felt like I am not fulfilling my word for the year, FINISH. Simply because I am not writing the way I had been. Finishing the day with a blog post and/or a journal entry was always something I have done, so right now I feel behind.

Then, my verse pops into my head and it tells me that “all things are possible with God”(Mark 10:27) and I am reminded that I don’t NEED to worry about what I didn’t do yesterday because I have right now, today, tomorrow and as many days that the Lord wishes for me to have in the future.

And, if my fingers hit the keys and begin to write and my mind doesn’t second guess each letter I tap then I know that my mind if flowing freely and I am speaking from my heart. In filling up the pages I am really drinking in the Lord and the blank pages become a physical metaphor for the soul-holes that the words, His Word, fills up and I heal a little bit more.

Sure I wear a thousand battle scars and will likely wear a thousand more but with God, I know everything is okay. I know that whatever I put in I will get out.

One of the sermons I listened to today was talking about being fruitful and fruitless and how both will lead to painful pruning. However fruitfulness and faithfulness are inseparable and our drive is to be fruitful (Gen 1:22).If planted in the right soil we will always experience fruitfulness in our lives.The key to change is staying the same. <-Tweet this

So I write, because that is a sameness that has worked for me for as long as I can possibly remember. All that painful pruning that I have gone through allows for greater growth, better, stronger branches, more fruit. These times of painful pruning the Lord is cultivating me for the future that I do not yet know!

“Life may make the cut but God is holding the scissors”
~Pastor Steven Furtick~

I woke up today to my little man saying “mommy are you awake?” to which I replied “no, why?” and he said “it’s okay, I can wait”. So I got out of bed and he wanted to borrow my mouse for the computer to play his game. He had already had a long day by the time I crawled out of bed, had went to hockey practice and was home before the sun breached the horizon.

That same voice said to me in the mid-afternoon hours “will you come to my game tonight?” and how can you say no when your child asks you so sweetly. So we went to his hockey game, he and I in the backseat and my parents driving. They played, and lost for the second time this season.

It is rare when a team never loses, but these boys play like one mind, one entity and that is amazing to watch, even on the two games they have lost. They don’t give up, they don’t give in. They play clean, they play hard, and they play well. They are a family.

A bunch of boys all playing because they LOVE TO PLAY and not because anyone is demanding they do.

I wish that I could have that spark for something in my life, a spark for cooking and cleaning and waking up early doing things because I want to and not because I have to.

I miss living a life I love. I miss loving the life I live.

I look up through the starry cold night and the red flash on the phone says that we are under an extreme cold warning and all I can think is how much it has warmed up over the last week or so and I know deep down that I am right where I am supposed to be and the only spark I need comes from God. The only spark I need is the light of our Lord.

I know that God can bring that spark back if I keep counting my own One Thousand Gifts and if I keep focusing on His word and striving to be a Proverbs 31 woman. Those things make me happy and happiness and all that is good comes straight from the One that is good, perfect.

As my one word for the year reminds me, I need to work hard to finish things because finishing and reaching my goals makes me feel closer to Him and then I can see the forest through the trees and I know that “all things are possible with God”.

Born and raised in Kenora, Ontario Canada, Marisa was a teen mom who has overcome incredible circumstances in order to provide the best life she can for her small family. Avid reader, blogger and a God-loving Christian, are just a few of the titles Marisa holds. Reading the Word and learning about God and His plans for her life are her current mission.